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Council Briefs

The Everett City Council last week approved a transfer of $50,000 from the Budgetary Fund Balance (Free Cash) to the Treasurer/Collector’s account to pay for higher than anticipated credit card usage fees from on line bill pay transactions by the general public.

Councilor Rosa DiFlorio asked Chief Financial Officer Eric Demas if the city could pass those costs onto the bill payer, and Demas said those costs could be passed on in the future, if the Council would like to do that.

“Past councilors were not in favor of doing that, I think that we were trying to get people to start paying their bills online, but it’s time for us to revisit that and see if maybe it is something the Council would like us to do going forward.”

Demas told the Council the City is currently being charged between 3-5 percent per credit card transaction online.

$700,000 for renovations and retrofitting for Vocational school approved

The Council also voted to approve up to $700,000 in new appropriation for the retrofit of space within Everett High School (EHS) to allow the School Department to pursue expanded vocational offerings at the school.

The authorization makes official the Council’s support of a plan that was presented to the Council in April, which proposed expanding the current vocational offerings at EHS to expand opportunities and help serve more Everett students with the course of study they wish to pursue.

CFO Eric Demas noted the actual construction costs of the retrofit would be determined through a competitive bid process, which will take place in June.

$849k transfer settles new police contract

On Monday, May 14, the City Council approved a transfer in the amount of $849,615 to settle retroactive payments to police officers for the recently settled police union contracts.

The retroactive payments will be awarded for both fiscal year 2017 and fiscal year 2018 for patrolmen and senior officers working during that time.

The transfer to the Salaries account was made from the Budgetary Fund balance (Free Cash).